10/4/14

"Wounds that heal the world"

"YOU will not be able rationally to read the story of a man presented as a Mirror of Christ without understanding his final phase as a Man of Sorrows, and at least artistically appreciating the appropriateness of his receiving, in a cloud of mystery and isolation, inflicted by no human hand, the unhealed everlasting wounds that heal the world."~G.K. Chesterton: St. Francis of Assisi.

St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, by Fra Angelico.

Tempera on wood, c. 1429; Pinacoteca, Vatican.

St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi:With Introductions by Ralph McInerny and Joseph Pearce• Amazon